page_title: Kasbah of Moulay Ismail
section_title: Defensive walls and fortifications
hierarchical_section_title: Kasbah of Moulay Ismail / Description / Defensive walls and fortifications
caption_attribution_description: English: Borj Belkari tower. Built in the 17th century.
context_page_description: The Kasbah of Moulay Ismail is a vast palace complex and royal kasbah built by the Moroccan sultan Moulay Isma'il ibn Sharif in Meknes, Morocco. It is also known, among other names, as the Imperial City or Palace of Moulay Ismail, or the Kasbah of Meknes. It was built by Moulay Isma'il over the many decades of his reign between 1672 and 1727, when he made Meknes the capital of Morocco, and received occasional additions under later sultans.
  In addition to Moulay Isma'il's own importance in the history of Morocco, his imperial palace in Meknes was notable for its vast scale and its complex infrastructure. The area covered by the kasbah was significantly larger than the old city of Meknes itself and operated as its own city with its own fortifications, water supply, food stockpiles, and troops. Historians later nicknamed it the "Moroccan Versailles". Today, many of the buildings from Moulay Isma'il's era have disappeared or fallen into ruin, but some notable monumental structures remain.
context_section_description: The kasbah enclosure is surrounded and protected by imposing thick walls, much of which still survives today. The walls, like those of the palaces and of most Moroccan city walls, were made of pisé or rammed earth. They were around 7 meters thick on average, which was remarkable even for the time. The walls were crowned along their length by typical pointed merlons which sheltered a "chemin de ronde" or wall walk, and reinforced at intervals by square bastion towers. Behind the walls were ring roads and passages that allowed for troops within the kasbah to be deployed along the walls easily.
  Some of the major corners in the circuit of walls were further defended by even larger quadrilateral bastion forts which dominate their surroundings. These include the Borj al-Qari (Borj Belkari or Borj Bel Kari) to the southwest of Bab al-Mansour, overlooking the Mellah, the Borj al-Mars at the kasbah's western corner, the Borj Bibi 'Aisha on its far eastern side, and the Borj al-Ma' near the northeastern corner of the Dar al-Makhzen complex. Borj Belkari was much later classified as a national historic monument in 1932 and was converted in the 21st century into a museum of pottery from the Rif region.
  The fortifications of the Kasbah were at their most extensive to the north, on the side facing the city, suggesting that Moulay Isma'il saw the city's inhabitants as an equal or even greater threat. For much of their length here the walls were doubled, consisting of two lines of ramparts with a clearing between them, with the outer wall generally being the most fortified. Another line of fortified walls also enclosed the Dar al-Kebira palaces, providing this part of the Kasbah with three layers of defense.
caption: Borj Belkari, a massive corner bastion in the walls of the kasbah
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